Link: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/30/sun-website-to-scrap-paywall
Summary:
Publisher News UK set to make U-turn and offer its content for free from 30 November in bid to compete with rivals such as Mail Online. The Sun is poised to make a major U-turn by scrapping its paywall and offering most of its website content for free. It is understood that News UK, which also publishes the Times and the Sunday Times, has taken the decision to compete against major rivals in the free advertising market such as Mail Online. The Sun has recruited Keith Poole, the managing editor of Mail Online in the US, as digital editor to bolster its team in the transition to a free site. The Sun made its first move to look beyond the paywall model in July this year when it started to make a range of its articles available for free. The entry of the Sun to the free digital ad market marks a major ramping-up of competition among national newspapers in the battle for digital advertising pounds in a market dominated by US giants Google and Facebook.
- Rebekah Brooks, the News UK chief executive, informed staff on Friday morning of the U-turn in strategy, which will happen on 30 November.
- Since relaxing its paywall strategy the Sun has increased its average daily browser numbers to about 1 million.
- The national newspaper market has seen unprecedented falls of up to 30% in print advertising this summer, an issue compounded by a worrying slowing of growth in digital advertising revenues.
Personally, I had a theory that this would happen as no one is going to continue to pay as there are other digital news that are offered for free on-line. I think removing the paywall would definitely increase The Sun's number of subscriptions.
No comments:
Post a Comment